March—Museum Display—A Walk through Time of the honorees from the past Chamber of Commerce Golf Tournaments is set up for the whole month at the Community Room. Visit during museum hours 1-4 PM Wednesday through Saturday. The display is located at 103 N. Columbia Street across the tracks from McDonalds. Drop in and take a Walk through Time with many of Union City’s past citizens.

May—Education Project for all 3rd grade students from Mississinawa and North Side Elementaries. Program specialists looking for a good educational outreach to students are welcome to attend. Specific date and times TBA--Contact Betsy Jefferis for more information.

The Great Divide is an opportunity to get great plants for your summer garden. Members of preservation bring starts of well-established plants with a great variety available. Prices are very reasonable and the proceeds go to projects of the Preservation Society of Union City IN-OH. There are two days to buy your new plants—Friday and Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend—at the home of Barb Landess Gentry. 9-5 on Friday and on Saturday 9-till noon or when the plants are sold out! The Progressive Dinner at Historic sites in Union City. The cost of the dinner is $25.00 which includes fantastic hors de oeuvres and drinks, specialty salads, a gourmet meal and polished off with dessert and entertainment at the Pipes, the home of Page Pipe organ. It will be quite a night of dining and fun all for $25.00 per person. Tickets for the event will be available at the Antique Mall or by calling members of Preservation. The festivities will be May 9th from 6:00 PM until the stars are out!

July—The Annual Veterans’ Day July 4th Picnic will be held indoors at the Community Room at 103 N. Columbia across the tracks from MacDonalds. The picnic is free to all veterans and the general public are treated to a fun lunch with veterans. There will be a display of military memorabilia and artifacts of all of the wars in which the United States has been involved. The picnic on Saturday the 4th begins at 11:00 AM and lasts until 1:00 PM. The suggested donation is $5.00 per person. The Old Hotel Museum will be open for everyone to visit during the picnic.Historic Road Trip! Have you ever visited the Indiana Dunes? If not, there will be a road trip sponsored by Preservation to see the dunes and see historic lakeshore homes and sites. Lunch on your own will be at one of the Lakeshore restaurants. The cost of transportation for the trip will be $15.00 per person. The trip will leave from the Community Room on Saturday July 11 at 8:00 AM. We will return to the Community Room by 6:00 PM.

September—The Second Annual Union City Arts Festival will happen Friday and Saturday Sept. 11 & 12 from 10 AM until 10 PM both days. A glimpse of Union City history will be part of this celebration. Chris Hawkey and his band will perform Friday evening, and another native son, Rick Derringer, member of the band who produced the famous “Hang on Sloopy” will return to Union City for a concert on Saturday evening and this is only part of the musical celebration. Rafaela Farias and other great musical performers including Bluegrass, Jazz, Classical, Gospel and many other local rock bands will appear on the main stage in the Artisans Crossing Park between the Depot and the Old Hotel Museum between Pearl Street and the railroad tracks.

Artists’ booths, food vendors, wineries and breweries will line the Artisan Park from the Historic Art Depot to Columbia Street. Tours, food demonstrations, artist workshops and artist demonstrations are special features of this festival. Juried art shows for college age students and children’s activities include all ages.

And, a display of Union City’s involvement in the famous movie “Hoosiers” and a showing of the film will delight the drama enthusiasts. We promise you will not be disappointed!

Watch the news, Facebook, and webpage http://unioncityartsfestival.com for more specific detail about the festival.

October—Collector’s Sale at the Community Room. Collectors this will be your chance to buy a space and sell some of your treasures and collections. Figurines, coins, comics, glassware, jewelry, watches, you name it, if it qualifies as a collection, you can buy table space for $10.00 and sell to your heart’s delight on Saturday October 10th from 10 AM until 5:00 PM.November—

The Annual Christmas Shopping Days will be November 21 from 9 until 5 at multiple locations throughout downtown Union City. This is a great change to find wonderful gifts for the holidays.Lights in the Park Festival Friday after Thanksgiving delight to the opening of the Community Christmas in Harter Park which begins with a light parade that proceeds through downtown Union City and ends at Harter Park home of over 3 million lights throughout the park. What a great way to open the Holiday Season. Time for parade TBA.

December—Christmas in the City once again will get the Christmas Spirit moving Friday evening December 4th. The annual Preservation Cookie Walk will be at the Community Room from 5-8 PM. There kids delight to a photo with Santa, and a light supper will be served at the Community Room at minimal cost. Bus tours to the Community Christmas in Harter Park, musical performances, and visual artists throughout downtown will be part of the event. At the Arts Depot you can find unique gifts during this evening in the city.First Friday at the 207 E. Elm Building, join us for First Friday from 5:15 till 7:00 PM. And drinks and music finish the evening at the Pipes home of the Page organ.

Darke County Center for the Arts will present percussive group Scrap Arts Music at Henry St. Clair Memorial Hall in Greenville on Saturday, March 14; the show begins at 8 p.m. Energetically playing amazing instruments skillfully fashioned from salvaged and recycled junk, the artists perform music based on world music traditions to present a dynamic performance suitable for all ages.

Scrap Arts Music inventively combines musical skill with innovative choreography and welding to present unique concerts which have been enjoyed by audiences around the world. Darke County Center for the Arts will present percussive group Scrap Arts Music at Henry St. Clair Memorial Hall in Greenville on Saturday, March 14; the show begins at 8 p.m. Energetically playing amazing instruments skillfully fashioned from salvaged and recycled junk, the artists perform music based on world music traditions to present a dynamic performance suitable for all ages.

“The action never stops as these high-kicking virtuosos leap and twist and play instruments created by the group's founder, Gregory Kozak, who has welded together materials reclaimed from scrap heaps to form the sculptural tune-able musical instruments they so effectively use to perform,” said DCCA Artistic Director Keith Rawlins. According to Rawlins, the list of 145-plus instruments one can expect to see at the show includes drums made from steel oil cans and a sound-maker created from dishwasher hose, bagpipe reeds, and a balloon. “The re-use of industrial cast-offs is central to Scrap Arts' mission, but the power of the music presented by five impressive musical talents is what has brought audiences to their feet across the globe,” Rawlins stated. Among their many notable performances, Scrap Arts Music was featured during the closing ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

The performance by Scrap Arts Music is sponsored by The Bistro Off Broadway, Greenville Technology Inc., and Richard and Shirley Baker. This presentation is supported by the Arts Midwest Touring Fund, a program of Arts Midwest that is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts with additional Contributions from the Ohio Arts Council, the Crane Group and General Mills Foundation.

Additionally, the Ohio Arts Council helped fund this program with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans. DCCA also receives operating support from the Harry D. and Esther Stephens Memorial as well as funding from the Ketrow Foundation and Lydia E. Schaurer Memorial Trust Fund.

Tickets for the show cost $25, and can be purchased by contacting DCCA at 937-547-0908 or dcca@centerforarts.net, at DCCA's office located within Greenville Public Library, as well as online atwww.CenterForArts.net. If any remain by showtime, tickets will also be available at the door prior to the performance.

Scrap Arts Music will also present Arts In Education performances at St. Clair Memorial Hall for junior high students in all Darke County public schools at 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.on Thursday, March 12 and at 9:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Friday, March 13. These sessions are free and open to the public.

Award-winning artist Carol Strock-Wasson will be featured during the month of March at Gordy Fine Art & Framing Company in downtown Muncie. An opening reception will take place on Thursday, March 5, 2015, from 5 to 8 PM. The artist will briefly speak and answer questions from the audience beginning at 6:15 PM.

A dedicated plein air painter, Strock-Wasson regularly sets up her easel and pastels in fields and woods of east central Indiana, mindful of the sunlight as it exposes certain features and allows long shadows on others. Pastels have a long and honored place in the art history of this region, and the hardworking Strock-Wasson is proud to be part of the current chapter.

“This body of work is principally about the pastel medium, expressing the vibrancy and permanence of the pigments,” explains the artist. Included in the exhibit will be several paintings from her “Willow Series,” which is an ongoing collection of paintings that focus on a single tree and the effects of light and color on it during different painting sessions. The artist is part of the local Wasson Nursery family, so her affinity for trees, plants, and landscapes is understandable.

Strock-Wasson maintains an impressive exhibition and award schedule. She will be a featured artist at the Door County Plein Air Festival in Wisconsin in July 2015, and was recently included in, “Ohio Prairies: A Year in the Life,” a show at the Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, Ohio.

The artist will speak briefly about her work and answer questions beginning at 6:15 PM. Light refreshments will be served, and the public is invited to attend. Gordy Fine Art & Framing is located at 224 East Main Street, next door to Muncie Civic Theatre. For more information, call 765-284-8422 or visit www.gordyframing.com.